After the Black Spring

12 results arranged by date

When I awoke on the morning of July 8, 2010, in the Guamajal Prison in Villa Clara, I couldn't have imagined that five days later I was going to be landing at Barajas International Airport in Spain, accompanied by five of my comrades.

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I joined the political
civilist youth movement in 1991. Curiously, what I remember most from that
period is how my apprehensions led me to disguise myself with a hat and glasses
when traveling from my town of Artemisa to Havana to meet with other activists.
These feelings of fear, defenselessness, and even blame, are common to those
who live in Cuba, stifled by oppression and numbed by endless totalitarian
propaganda.

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I went to prison for practicing independent journalism
in Cuba.
As soon as you get there, you must prepare yourself to narrate the horrors of
the hellhole you've ended up in. And Cuban prisons are horrendous. But the
horrors start not one step back in the penal tribunal, not two steps back with
the police chief, but three steps back, with the Cuban penal code, which
reflects the social decomposition of post-Soviet Cuba. The government's legal
response to a wave of robberies (and to a similar wave of political unrest) is
to make sentences more severe. Are they trying to punish the innocent? No, they
want to "save the revolution," and since "the end justifies the means," toughness
is expected from the police and from prosecutors, who are judged on their
ability to quickly resolve cases; and from judges, who grow accustomed to
handing down harsh sentences. In such a way, they get used to tough sentencing
as they continue to lose their humanity.

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On March 18, 2003, our people endured one of the worst episodes in Cuba's history. The peaceable political dissident community, human rights defenders, trade unionists, and independent journalists, along with representatives of the emergent and democratic civil society--74 men and one woman--were the victims of the most absolute, merciless, and cruel government power.

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When I wake up and sense my
husband's body next to mine, I ask myself if I'm dreaming or if it is true that
he has returned to our home.

Eight years have passed since 75
Cubans were uprooted from their homes for thinking differently than the
governmental discourse and having the courage to express it publicly. So many
days and nights of agony and suffering for their parents, wives, children, and
grandchildren; so much accumulated pain. But the important thing is that they
couldn't uproot our love. Our love gave us the motivation needed to undertake a
tenacious and constant fight for the release of our loved ones.

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On March 18, 2003, I got up early as usual, connected my
shortwave radio receiver, and tuned into a number of radio stations in the south
of Florida in search of the day's most important news. As always, the radio
interference was brutal and made it hard to hear. Still, I had to make the
effort to obtain even a minimum amount of information that, as an independent
journalist, would permit me to counter the official news provided by the regime
through our small news agency, Agencia Libertad.

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The clouds of exile are twice as bitter. Being forced from your birthplace and into legal limbo in the land of your grandparents where you're met by complete official abandonment only deepens the wounds. My
gloominess has nothing to do with the affection and solidarity shown by the
Spanish people, especially the citizens of Madrid. Thanks to many of them my
family--my wife and my little 5-year-old Emmanuel--have clothes and shoes. We
arrived with nothing. Or worse yet: We arrived loaded down with the heavy
baggage of my long imprisonment.

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I was born beneath the yoke of a tyranny, now more than 50
years old, in which prison is the only destination for its deterrents. I first
came across this destination in 1997, when I was sentenced to five years in
prison for the alleged crime of committing an outrage "against state security."
In Cuba, besides being a journalist, I was the coordinator of the Cuban Youth
for Democracy Movement, an organization that defends the many truncated rights
within higher learning institutions, such as a university's autonomy. The
answer to our demands? Prison.

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It was about 4 in the afternoon on July 8 when the official assigned to me at Toledo Prison, where I'd been locked up for nearly five years, came running to get me. He was in such a hurry that that he tripped and almost fell to the ground. "Saludes, we're going upstairs," he said, breathless and sweating. He didn't give me any more details, but I soon found out that he was taking me up to the director's office where State Security was waiting for me. "They've come to talk to me," I told myself. And they had.

At the chief's desk sat an agent of the political police. I didn't recognize his face, but he had the same harshness and arrogance as all members of that repressive body. As soon as I entered the office, the agent signaled me silently to pick up the telephone receiver lying unhooked on the desk.

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The president of the tribunal looked to his right and said, "The prosecutor has the floor." With a serious voice he pronounced the sentence: "The prosecutor ratifies the request for perpetual imprisonment for the accused, Victor Rolando Arroyo Carmona, for acts against the independence and territorial integrity of the country."